A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) | Page 4

I'll set a good
face on it, as though what I had talk'd idly all this while were my part.
So it is, _boni viri_, that one fool presents another; and I, a fool by
nature and by art, do speak to you in the person of the idiot of our
play-maker. He, like a fop and an ass, must be making himself a public
laughingstock, and have no thank for his labour; where other Magisterii,
whose invention is far more exquisite, are content to sit still and do

nothing. I'll show you what a scurvy Prologue he had made me, in an
old vein of similitudes: if you be good fellows, give it the hearing, that
you may judge of him thereafter.

THE PROLOGUE.
At a solemn feast of the Triumviri in Rome, it was seen and observed
that the birds ceased to sing, and sat solitary on the housetops, by
reason of the sight of a painted serpent set openly to view. So fares it
with us novices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to look
on the imaginary serpent of envy, painted in men's affections, have
ceased to tune any music of mirth to your ears this twelvemonth,
thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hiss, so childhood and
ignorance would play the gosling, contemning and condemning what
they understood not. Their censures we weigh not, whose senses are not
yet unswaddled. The little minutes will be continually striking, though
no man regard them: whelps will bark before they can see, and strive to
bite before they have teeth. Politianus speaketh of a beast who, while
he is cut on the table, drinketh and represents the motions and voices of
a living creature. Such like foolish beasts are we who, whilst we are cut,
mocked, and flouted at, in every man's common talk, will
notwithstanding proceed to shame ourselves to make sport. No man
pleaseth all: we seek to please one. Didymus wrote four thousand
books, or (as some say) six-thousand, on the art of grammar. Our
author hopes it may be as lawful for him to write a thousand lines of as
light a subject. Socrates (whom the oracle pronounced the wisest man
of Greece) sometimes danced: Scipio and Laslius, by the sea-side,
played at peeble-stone: Semel insanivimus omnes. Every man cannot
with Archimedes make a heaven of brass, or dig gold out of the iron
mines of the law. Such odd trifles as mathematicians' experiments be
artificial flies to hang in the air by themselves, dancing balls, an
egg-shell that shall climb up to the top of a spear, fiery-breathing gores,
poeta noster professeth not to make. Placeat sibi quinque licebit.
What's a fool but his bauble? Deep-reaching wits, here is no deep
stream for you to angle in. Moralisers, you that wrest a never-meant
meaning out of everything, applying all things to the present time, keep
your attention for the common stage; for here are no quips in characters

for you to read. Vain glosers, gather what you will; spite, spell
backward what thou canst. As the Parthians fight flying away, so will
we prate and talk, but stand to nothing that we say.
How say you, my masters? do you not laugh at him for a coxcomb?
Why, he hath made a prologue longer than his play: nay, 'tis no play
neither, but a show. I'll be sworn the jig of Rowland's godson is a giant
in comparison of it. What can be made of Summer's last will and
testament! Such another thing as Gyllian of Brentford's[20] will, where
she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her friends. Forsooth, because
the plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21]
Summer must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield
his throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle
Tom-boy. God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what
you say now, for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you
heard too (by your leave) was extempore. He were as good have let me
had the best part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, in this
person of Will Summer, which I have put on to play the prologue, and
mean not to put it off till the play be done. I'll sit as a chorus, and flout
the actors and him at the end of every scene. I know they will not
interrupt me, for fear of marring of all; but look to your cues, my
masters, for I intend to play the knave in cue, and put you besides all
your parts, if you take not the better heed. Actors, you rogues, come
away; clear your throats, blow your noses,